Pavarazzi Gourmet

491 Somerset West At Lyon - 233-2320
Date: July 9th, 2005
Cost: ~$36.00 (two large)

    Who doesn’t like sitting around with friends eating pizza on a Saturday night? We here at Pizza Ottawa are big fans. On this day, we ordered two large pizzas from Pavarazzi Gourmet, one for us and one for our two non-Pizza Ottawa friends. We had our standard plain cheese pizza (in this case they called it by its Italian name ‘margherita’) and our friends had a pepperoni pie. We weren’t sure about their delivery specifications, and couldn’t be bothered to ask, so we decided to pick them up. Approximately 20 minutes after ordering we were at the Somerset location and our pizzas were waiting for us. Because Pavarazzi is 'gourmet' pizza, we were expecting to pay a little more, and in the end it was $36 for our two pizzas.

    We got back to our friend’s house and dug in. On first impression, the pizza looked very cheesy, with a fairly thin crust. What set this pizza apart from other pizzas we’ve tried so far was the fact that the cheese went almost all the way to the edge of the crust. This proved to be a mixed blessing, as it maximized the amount of cheese but it also, on a few slices, anyway, left no room to handle the crust without getting a little cheese grease on our hands.

    The crust itself was surprisingly supple. It did not fall limp under the weight of the cheese, but it wasn’t crunchy or overdone at all. Looking at the bottom, we could see that it was browned to perfection. The taste was also very good, but it wasn’t spectacular. It also wasn’t particularly distinctive, aesthetics aside.

    The cheese was in abundance here, which was a good thing. Also cooked to just the right consistency, it was a flavourful and chewy cheese. It was also interestingly noted by one of our reviewers that the pizza was very ‘glued together’, that is, it did not peel apart like so many other pizzas we’ve had. Admittedly, one of our reviewers has this problem more than most. The plus side to this problem is it allows for a better review of just the sauce and just the crust. In this case, a real effort had to be made to remove the cheese.

    The one thing that let us down slightly was the sauce. It may be that we are expecting something that most people don’t want or is just too difficult to attain, but we have encountered few pizzerias with spectacular sauce. It isn’t that it was bad in any way; it was just a little plain for our tastes.

    What should be noted about Pavarazzi is, being a gourmet pizzeria, they do offer several interesting toppings and options. For example, we had the choice of plain crust or herb crust (we opted for plain to keep consistent with other reviews we’ve done), plain sauce or spicy sauce, and even plain pepperoni or spicy pepperoni for our friends’ pizza. If you choose to order from there, keep in mind that different toppings are in different price ranges, so study their menu well. We hope to try the herb crust and spicy sauce another time.

    Pavarazzi is one of Ottawa’s more high-end pizzerias by design. They make a very good pizza to be sure, but we were hoping for a little better given its reputation. That said, if you’re into trying something new and something a little adventurous, look into what they have to offer, because some of their toppings are not your usual garden-variety fare. Our self-imposed standards of fairness keep us from ordering extravagant pizzas for our reviews, and as such we may have missed out on what is best about Pazarazzi's, but that shouldn’t stop anyone else from doing so.

Posted by Jim at July 10, 2005 03:23 PM